Bagging Delaware (#24) on a soggy day and notes about other recent adventures

My all-weather map of Delaware. Note state's name spelled wrong.

Okay, it's been awhile so figured time for an update.

Amazing but true: I've kept up the one-per-month pace in my quest to run a minimum of 10K in all 50 states.

Just yesterday (Thursday, June 16), it was Delaware. In May, it was Nevada. In April, Massachusetts. The last day of March found me in unseasonably mild rural Rhode Island, while February brought me to Central City, Nebraska, which I discovered is anything but central.

So I'm now up to a total of 24, and running out of close-by states, which means it'll be more challenging to keep the once-a-month pace going.

The only states I have within driving distance are Maine and, sort of, New Jersey.

The remainder will involve at least some kind of trip away from home base to accomplish. Some can be done in one day if I find a cheap air fare.

But right now, I don't have any firm plans until when I go out to California November. That's when I might try to get either Oregon or Washington. Or both. :)

A planned visit to Sioux City, Iowa next February will give me a chance to bag that state and maybe a couple of others in the upper Midwest: South Dakota and Minnesota.

Among states in the "day-trip" category are a stretch in the deep south: South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. With JetBlue and Southwest out of Boston, they're all doable.

Same thing with a few in the Midwest: Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Well, if I can somehow keep up a pace of one state per month, that means I'll be finished by...July 2018!

That's not allowing for recovery from knee surgery I'm sure I'll need at some point.

And as for Delaware: Dover is hands-down the flattest place I've ever run in. For the entire route, the biggest gains (or losse) in altitude were when I hopped on and off a curb!

I'll give the place high marks for sidewalks, though. Of the entire 6.6-mile course, which included some stretches of road far out in the suburbs, only one short section was without some kind of pedestrian way.

Lots of bike paths as well. Wish my own area of Manchester, N.H. and its surrounding suburbs could enjoy amenities like this.

In other news:

• Summited Mount Moosilauke with a small party on Saturday, June 11. Didn't add to my total of 4,000-footers, which still stands at 31. Still, it was enough to get me back on the trail.

A busy calendar, alas, means there aren't too many opportunities in the near future to conquer any more of the 48 peaks on the list.

A new wrinkle is our youngest dog, Inca. She likes to get out and did well on Mount Moosilauke, save for not appreciating rain on the way down.

For her, Mount Moosilauke was #6, so it's time to get moving if she's going to have a chance to complete the whole roster.

Alas, our older dog, Zahnna, is now too infirm to haul herself up (and down) a White Mountain summit. As a 13-year-old German Shepherd, she now has trouble with household stairs, so her total of peaks will have to stand at 31—the same as me.

• Haven't yet run in any official road races this year. Again, mostly a function of time and organization. I have these fantasies of getting up early on the weekends and hauling myself out to New Hampshire communities I've yet to run in. Ha!

But will make it a priority to make some progress in this area. Same with longer bike rides.

Running 6.5 miles in Missouri: A trip back in time, sort of...

Poke around Nevada, Missouri, and you might think it's 1962. The largest employer in town is a big industrial plant where things are actually manufactured. The freight cars have no graffiti. And a big new Interstate highway is on the way!

All this reminded me of "Hilltown," the imaginary and somewhat idealized town that served as the setting of an elementary school textbook on personal hygiene, community service, and good citizenship.

Hilltown was made up, but Nevada was real. And that's what I thought about as I ran 6.5 miles, mostly in farmland beyond the city limits, early on Saturday, Sept. 29. Thus did Missouri become State #6 in my quest to run at least 10K in all 50. (By the way, it's pronounced "Ne-VAY-dah.")

Time? 1 hour, 23 minutes, starting at 7:15 a.m. Distance: yes, 6.5 miles, according to Google maps. Weather: temperatures in the 50s with a high broken overcast. The sun rose enough during the run to push me into a good sweat by the end.

We were staying in town to attend this year's annual Buster Keaton Celebration in Iola, Kansas, a town across the nearby border. Our hotel was run by an Indian family that did all its cooking on the premises, giving the place the unmistakeable ambiance of New Delhi.

My running route first took me east, underneath Route 71, which is about to be upgraded into something rare in this day and age: a brand-spanking-new Interstate highway! (In this case, Interstate 49.) Really -- the work in upgrading Route 71 to Interstate standards from Kansas City south to the Arkansas border is almost done, with even the signs in place and only lacking the actual numbers, which I read are supposed to go up this fall.

This whole "here comes the new Interstate" thing is something that must have been much more common a half-century ago, when the system was being built out at a rapid pace and significant new stretches were opening every construction season. Not so anymore -- except in Nevada, Missouri, which also happens to be devoid of any enclosed shopping malls or significant suburban shopping plazas. Coincidence?

I was taking a chance going out into the open countryside, but surprisingly, the roads and intersections were well marked. Once I hit Route 1800, I turned north and followed it to Nevada's Airport, where things were no busier than the open cropland I was otherwise surrounded by.

I then reached Route 54 (visible above, in the distance), which I took east back into town alongside the tracks of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, or so a map told me. I was surprised to see long lines of freight cars with absolutely no graffiti on them! You could even read all the reporting marks, which seem to be usually obscured by vandals. The oldest covered hopper car, for example, had been on the rails since February 1974.

When Route 54 turned west, I turned east, heading back to the hotel, but not before passing the massive 3M plant on the city's eastern side. This enormous facility, the largest area employer (610 are currently on the payroll) is refreshing in that things are actually made there, just like the factories on the edge of Hilltown.

Imagine that! But I didn't have to, as I saw it right before my eyes.

Next up: 10K or better in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I'm madly typing this out now.